


Night-Blooming Flowers

by Leni



Category: Kushiel's Legacy - Jacqueline Carey
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-10
Updated: 2011-12-10
Packaged: 2017-10-27 04:02:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/291417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leni/pseuds/Leni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six assignments at the Night Court, from the patron's pov. <b>WARNINGS:</b> If you've read the books, this is rather tame. If you haven't, there's m/m, f/f, hints of incest and BDSM.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night-Blooming Flowers

**Alyssum**   
\- with eyes averted -

 _Patience,_ Emile cautions herself, running a finger down the outermost layer wrapping around tonight's choice for company. The softness of the cloth does not amaze her anymore, so many years past her first visit to the Night Court. Adepts of all Houses are dressed with more care than the nobles, adorned with more sense and art. In Alyssum House, a film of modesty spices the air, discrete robes covering what others so cheerfully display.

After years playing this part, Emile has finally understood rushing is pointless and patience, rewarded. For disrobing an Alyssum adept is a thing of art.

Her finger runs upwards, catching the edge of the gauze veil and lifting it to reveal a long neck, a pointed chin, thin lips lightly touched with carmine paint, and high cheeks, so soft that Emile must resist rubbing her nose against it, tearing off the veil and ending her own pleasure.

"I want to see you," she confesses, a familiar thrill in her chest when a blush spreads across cheeks and neck. Emile succumbs and leans to whisper against those rosy lips. "Let me see you?"

Miriam nods, continuing the ritual of countless assignations together.

Emile smiles and kisses the corner of that mouth. "Wait until I light more candles," she presses tonight, enjoying as nervous teeth play with a bottom lip.

Miriam times it precisely, pushing the veil back right when Emile has finished bringing the last flame to life and is turning toward her. Hesitant hands go to the ribbon at the front of the robe, waiting for Emile's nod before proceeding.

Emile walks back to her as in a dream, forever caught by the shape of those hands. _Say no word,_ she thinks, _don't distract her._ For an Alyssum adept disrobing herself is a thing of marvel.

 

 

 **Balm**   
\- rest and be soothed -

Once a year.

Only once a year.

The travails of the twelvemonth, the marches through sunglared fields with no more than his assigned fare. Let the fools laugh, let them fill their bags with costly white bread and sweetest wine. Lucas has seen their eyes when this day approaches, has caught the simmering envy as his purse fattens until it can buy his passage into the Night Court.

Let them laugh, yes. They are the ones wasting themselves on small pleasures and lesser women. Lucas may have but a night, bought with a thousand denials and great discomforts, but it is the night that defines a year, the richest possession in a foot soldier's life. The rest of the year, Lucas will wander from one border watch post to the next, scouring the distance and risking his life in the name of Terre d'Ange.

But he survives. Year after year, he survives and spends his leave traveling back to the City.

He enters Balm House a tired man, a soldier weary of his commission and his inability to change trades so late in life; but he'll leave a recharged man, body and mind reset of such pains and filled with the caring touch of young Muriel.

No, not young anymore. Twenty years have left their mark on him and her.

But her hands are as soft as when he first lay on her bed; her voice still possesses the soothing cadence that attracted that lad of five and twenty, awed by the promised pleasures his bravery had bought him from a proud superior, and led him to a girl barely past her virgin night.

"Thank you," Lucas sighs when she finishes the massage, rolling on his back to bring her against his chest.

Once a year.

It's worth the wait.

 

 

 **Bryony**   
\- wealth seeks company -

Marcus knows well their game, golden-haired Adelie and her half-brother Dorian whispering contradictory counsel in his ears and scolding each other under their breath, and loves them the more for it.

"No, draw a card!" Adelie whispers hurriedly, catching his wrist to stop him from throwing an ace. At his left side, Dorian groans, and Marcus feels the siblings glaring off over his head.

"What will it be?" Nirsa asks, with that patient look she's worn since she realized that Marcus would never step up as the elder sibling. A good woman, Nirsa is, so ready to lighten her brother's burden. Marcus has always thanked her that their parents died in peace, certain that their youngest child would steer the family into good waters.

And she had.

Marcus has watched her from his small office, proof-reading lumbering contracts as his sister worked construction contracts out of people who'd been previously unaware that they wanted an additional room at their house. Nirsa makes a smooth gamer, bright eyes and smiles until her quary walks into her hands.

It makes wagering against her the more exciting.

"Patience, baby sis." Marcus grins when her eyes narrow. Ah, but such teasing is an older brother's duty. She'll punish him, send piles of documents that need revising.

A brother's duties never end.

"For luck," Adelie whispers, kissing the tip of his ear and motioning Dorian to mimic her.

They did the same for Nirsa two hands ago. Marcus doesn't resent them; the blond pair won't care which sibling wins, and that speaks well of him and Nirsa. He's had them before; and since the stakes remain the same after every hefty contract, he will again. "Thank you, love," he leans back to kiss each in turn, and with their conjoined blessing, finally draws a card.

 

 

 **Camellia**   
\- without fault or flaw -

Atillus never thought such beauty existed.

He remembers his pass through the border, the moment he pressed his face to the carriage window and believed at last that D'Angellines descended from angels. He spent entire hours buried in his seat, shamed by his body's reaction whenever a passing farmer grinned at him.

"I… I…" He stammers, grateful for the adept's understanding eyes. "I never thought…."

Indeed, Atillus never thought. Not that he'd become a successful merchant, he, the son of a fisherman and the favored maid of a Serenissiman noble house. Not until the lady arranged a private audience after his mother's death, bid him to stay even after giving him a generous purse. "Your mother was a dear servant; a… friendly face. She was a fixture in my life. She shall be missed, Atillus. Know that." The mournful speech moved his heart, made him wish he'd known better the woman that'd born him and then left him aside to attend her duties. Atillus wouldn't connect the lady's sadness with her mother's absence for years to come, not until a month in the City of Elua taught him that their divine precept was no sin.

It took him two more months to gather his courage and kiss the innkeeper's middle son, and he was still surprised to be kissed back. "Go to the Night Court," Jopeth whispered when Atillus professed love, "Go and see if it's me or the D'Angelline body you love."

Strange custom, Atillus thought.

Now he watches the tall Camellian adept, the perfect lines of his chest even beneath the light shirt - Sweet Lady, Tiberian sculptors would have made him a model for the gods.

 _The body,_ Atillus confesses to himself as he is caught in the sweet embrace, _This, I crave,_ and isn't sorry for it.

 

 

 **Cereus**   
\- all loveliness fades - 

Bedding a Cereus adept is akin to catching a butterfly on the last day of spring. Fascinating colors, an intrinsic delicacy to the very act; but deep down dwelt the unsteady feeling that joy and beauty would slip away and leave mist-heavy memories behind.

Ferrand knows this, and yet comes back. Three decades old, and he's yet to find a more exhilarating sensation. As wind to the fire, the fear of loss fans his hunger, challenges him further, urges to sample everything sweet Vania is offering, since her entire demeanor proclaims that it may be gone when they next wake.

 

 

 **Dahlia**   
\- upright and unbending -

Her husband once asked why she'd visit the one House where Naamah's Servants possessed the natural arrogance that a Prince of the Blood would use at court. "Have you had the Prince in your bed, dear?" she asked, ruffling his hair fondly. Victor chortled in answer, tilting his head to catch her wrist between his teeth, "But I have you," he rumbled against the bite mark, placing one arm around her while the other reached between her legs.

A hungry man in the mornings, her Victor - and at night, and every time their schedules allow them. Mother was right when, after one look at the rich landowner, she counseled that if Marla were determined to marry him, she better take frequent naps during the day. Pity that romance wasn't everything; they enjoyed each other, but the differences in their loving was drawing them apart. _Love as thou wilt,_ her mother wrote back, a response to a frustrated missive Marla had regretted sending the moment it left the state. Trusting her mother's wisdom, that same night she sent the children early to bed and showed Victor the letter.

Victor had laughed then, too, and in less than an hour they'd agreed on a weekend in the City every six months. After five years, they shared the coach to the Night Court, and he had the courtesy of delivering her at Dahlia House before continuing his way to Valerian grounds.

"You missed a paragraph," Ignazio complains, no longer petting her hair.

Marla blinks at the book, her choice for the night, and closes it. "I'm afraid I'm too distracted, dear." Where she is naked, Ignazio still wears his embroidered vest - Akkadian style, a prince of the desert. His dark eyes brighten, and he watches her caress his chest. "Maybe you could help?"


End file.
